Minimalist Word Processor Showdown: WriteRoom vs. JDarkRoom
Few things can impact a blogger as negatively as their own workspace. Even with the best of intentions, writing an article in one tab of your browser and fact checking in another can lead to a few quick emails, a twitter update, checking out Facebook — the next thing you know you’ve been reading articles on digg for an hour. Our productivity tools often lead us to being anything but productive. This was a trap I found myself falling into more and more as they days went on. Then I discovered the secret world of minimalist word processing.
Rumor: OSX 10.6 to Bring YouTube Uploading?
If the latest rumor making it’s rounds on the internet is true, YouTube uploading has just been made idiot-proof. Apple Insider is reporting that, in addition to a host of new features, OSX 10.6 (better known as Snow Leopard) will allow YouTube uploading from Quicktime. Apple has yet to confirm or deny the rumor, so we’ll have to treat this one with a real wait-and-see approach.
AirPhones Review: Bluetooth Headphones Without the Bluetooth
The world is getting wireless and so is your headphones. Products such as bluetooth headphones have been popping up here and there to allow you to get rid of that pesky cord that tugs and gets in the way of your work. Unfortunately, these products can be quite expensive and require the expense of constant battery replacement. What if I told you there is a way to experience the freedom from the cord and the heaviness of your wallet at the same time? Introducing AirPhones: the app that takes your iPhone/iPod Touch and turns it into wireless headphones.
News: Feeder 2.0 Released
Today, Reinvented Software announced version 2.0 of their feed-creating software called Feeder. We reviewed it just over two years ago and thought highly of it then.
Feeder 2.0′s new features/improvements include: A new User Interface, easier accessible templates, easier editing with syntax highlighting, new portrait previews, easier posting to Weblogs, automatic announcements on Twitter and Facebook, Amazon S3 uploading (it seems this is a new feature in many 2.0 upgrades these days), a new share panel that explains how to add your feed where you want it, iTunes U support, live validation, and many more new features and improvements all around. The full release notes can be found here.
ExpanDrive 2.0 Released
A while back, we reviewed ExpanDrive, the utility that treats any network drive like a regular external or internal hard drive. Just recently, ExpanDrive 2.0 has been released with some nice new features.
The biggest and best new feature has to be Amazon S3 support. If you don’t know what that is, it is a service from Amazon that allows you to host files. You can now easily add an S3 account to your accounts list, and connect to it like it is a USB or FireWire drive. But, this means much more than just that. Most people buy hosting for a website or web service. But, one of the points of Amazon S3 is offsite backup. So, when your S3 is treated like a regular hard drive, this makes things so much easier. ExpanDrive even includes a contextual menu in the Finder for changing permissions on files.
World of Warcraft on iPhone: Hack or Hoax?
The fine folks over at TouchArcade were recently tipped off to the existence of a YouTube video claiming that a very dedicated coder has found a way to get World of Warcraft running on the iPhone. It may sound like an elaborate hoax (and for all we know, it is) but does that mean it’s impossible?
News: Twitterrific 2.0 for the iPhone Coming Soon!
The Iconfactory has recently released a teaser at their Twitterrific website showing us a preview of the next version of Twitterific for the iPhone. Twitterrific was one of the original mac twitter applications out there, but really hasn’t been as full featured as a couple other competitors out there such as Tweetie.
From what we can tell, Tweeting will be completely different with a full pane dedicated towards submitting tweets in normal, @reply, and direct message form, as well as a new profile view displaying more information and quick access to tweet the currently viewed person. It looks as if Twitterrific for the iPhone is getting a complete interface-lift.
GV Mobile Preview: Google Voice for your iPhone
Google recently announced Grand Central will be folded into Google Voice, an ambitious plan to do what GMail did for email with your phones. From voicemail transcription to multiple phones ringing at your will, the service has been well received so far by those of us lucky enough to have old GrandCentral numbers that were grandfathered in. The problem: how to control the service via your iPhone.
EasyCrop Review: Trimming out the Fat
Huge photo suites like PhotoShop and Gimp may offer a completely comprehensive set of photo-editing tools, but it comes at a price. Actual cost asides (Gimp is open source freeware after all) these big programs are major memory hogs. And while it may not really that big of a nuisance when you’re working on a larger project, it’s beyond frustrating when you have to wait 2 minutes for the program to load when all you want to do is crop or resize a photo. Yellow Mug Software has heard your cry, and they’ve responded with EasyCrop.
Screenium 1.1 Released
Last year, we did a face-off of all the major screen-capturing apps. In the end, we thought that Screenium was the winner for its price and large feature-set. Just recently, Screenium has been updated to version 1.1 and holds a few new features.
The first new feature is the customization of mouse clicks“You can now show users your mouse clicks. There is a new Mouse tab where you can customize the size, color, duration and strength of your mouse clicks. You can even display the button name for the click. This means, if you click the left mouse button, it says, ‘Left’ where you clicked as well as showing the animation. You can visualize all these styles without having to create a video in the Mouse Actions Preview box at the bottom.
